


watercolour

by renecdote



Series: hc_bingo 2020 [2]
Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Angst, Brief cameo by Kono, Gen, Grief, Hurt/Comfort, Pilot coda, References to Canon Character Death(s), might have forgotten the comfort though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:42:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24904024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renecdote/pseuds/renecdote
Summary: There hadn’t been time to cry when Freddie died, hadn’t been time to cry when his father died, and now that there is time it’s like his body has forgotten how to do it. He’s caught in the middle; sad and not sad, crying and not crying, okay and not okay.(Mostly not okay.)Post-pilot. Danny takes Steve home.
Series: hc_bingo 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1799395
Comments: 14
Kudos: 54





	watercolour

**Author's Note:**

> This fic fills the wild card square on my hurt/comfort bingo card with 'grief'. It's... not happy. Sorry.

“Hey,” Danny says at some point. “Let me take you home.”

Steve’s stare is maybe a little blank. It takes a moment to muddle through the white noise in his head and form a denial. He’s fuzzy from an inadvisable combination of painkillers, beer and the leaden tug of exhaustion that he’s been battling with for days. Driving is not something he’s really capable of right now and Steve knows it. So it’s not the ride that he’s protesting to, it’s the... the home thing. 

Danny must understand this because his face does strange, unhappy things. “You want me to take you to a hotel?” he asks, gentle, careful, less like Steve is breakable and more like he’s already broken, the shattered pieces of him littering the ground of his shiny new office.

(Medals already on the wall, his father’s case file tucked in a drawer, Victor Hesse’s smirking photograph peeking out from under a glossy laptop; pieces of him that, put together, don’t seem to make a whole.)

Steve doesn’t want to go to a hotel either. He doesn’t know what he wants, exactly, except maybe to wind back time, go back a week knowing what he knows now and stop all this shit from happened. Stop his dad from dying and Freddie from dying and—

His chest aches sharply and he has to take a sudden, shuddering breath to try squash down the tight ball sitting on his sternum.

“Ah, jeez,” Danny mutters. He puts a hand on Steve’s shoulder, but doesn’t seem to know what to do with himself then. Steve isn’t quite sure what to do with himself either, so he just folds forward and tries to hold it all in. The sad, the unsure, the slightly dizzy because painkillers and alcohol? Bad idea. Really bad idea. He’s a little surprised Danny didn’t stop him, honestly, and starting to wish that he had. 

There is music playing on the edge of Steve’s awareness and Kono’s bright laughter and something low and rumbling that might be Chin’s voice or could just be the swell of emotion crashing over him. He’s not crying, but he’s not _not_ crying either. There hadn’t been time to cry when Freddie died, hadn’t been time to cry when his father died, and now that there is time it’s like his body has forgotten how to do it. He’s caught in the middle; sad and not sad, crying and not crying, okay and not okay.

(Mostly not okay.)

Kono sticks her head into the office, her lazy “hey boss—“ breaking off as she takes them in. Kudos to the rookie though, her voice is still light when she asks, “Danny? Did you break the boss?”

“Why does it have to be my fault?” Danny complains. “Maybe he broke himself, huh, did you think of that?”

A sound of protest worms its way past the hands that Steve has over his face. It’s a pathetic, half-hearted kind of sound though, more reactionary than honest. He thinks he did do this to himself, in a way. He got Freddie killed and he got his dad killed and—

Hell, he almost got Danny killed too, didn’t he? Less than two days and he almost got his partner killed, almost got his whole team killed if he adds it all up, fucking hell, there’s something wrong with him. There’s something wrong with him.

Danny’s hand tightens on his shoulder, almost bruising. He can’t possibly know what Steve is thinking, but in that moment it seems like he does. 

“SuperSEAL here can’t hold his liquor,” he says to Kono, matching her upbeat tone for upbeat tone. “I’m gonna take him home. Are you and your cousin...?”

“We’re good, brah,” Kono says. She’s had a few beers, Steve is pretty sure, but she doesn’t sound all that tipsy. Not that it matters either way; Chin Ho will get her home.

Kono must leave because Danny’s voice is quiet again, just for Steve when he says, “Come on, babe, let’s get out of here.”

Steve still doesn’t know where there is to go. 

He gets his feet under him, only has to close his eyes for a second when the room spins, Danny’s hand falling away but staying close. Steve is planning to ask where they’re going, but as quickly as the question forms behind his tongue it dies away. He rubs at his eyes instead; still not crying, still not _not_ crying. He feels like a watercolour painting done with too much water and not enough time to dry, colours bloated and washed out, fuzzy around the edges.

Danny doesn’t say a word as he shepherds Steve out of the office, through the boxes and equipment scattered around their new HQ and out into the balmy night, standing patiently by the passenger door of the Camaro until Steve crumples into the seat and swings his legs in. The door slams and he’s alone with his thoughts for the breath that he holds until Danny circles the car and gets in the other side. Steve still doesn’t know where they’re going. He also finds that he doesn’t particularly care. 

He tips his head against the window, watches Honolulu blur before his eyes until he has to close them. The orange street lights look like gun flashes through his eyelids, but Steve is too tired to force them back open, just watches the bursts of colour play out. Danny says his name, quietly, like he thinks Steve might be asleep. Steve hums, still there, still present and accounted for even though it’s so tempting to just check out. He found Hesse, probably killed him. He did what he came here to do. He... he can not be okay now, can’t he?

Danny sighs; still quiet but it seems to fill the whole car. Steve wants to tell him to stop it. Stop what, exactly, he’s not sure. The sighing and the looks and the—the thinking, which is so loud it’s making _Steve’s_ head ache.

Although, that could be the kick to the jaw he took earlier. Which was about as fun as the bullet through his shoulder. Victor Hesse and his custom boots pack a real punch. 

Kick. 

Whatever.

Fuck, Steve is tired. He’s a lot of things but. Tired is the easiest. 

“Hey.”

He must have dozed off a bit because he has to drag himself back to alertness; doesn’t quite manage it all the way, but he gets close enough to blink fuzzily at his partner in the semi-darkness of the car. 

“You need a hand getting inside?” Danny asks and Steve realises that they’re at his dad’s house. Figures. Where else was he going to end up? Just because it’s not home doesn’t mean it’s not… Well. He guesses it is home now. For however long it lasts, anyway. 

Steve gets the car door open, waves away Danny’s offer of help and responds to his “okay, see you tomorrow then” with something that might be goodnight. He doesn’t think about the way that Danny sits there, car idling, for as long as it takes Steve to get up to the front door and fumble it open one-handed. He locks the door behind him, sets the alarm on autopilot, then he’s left just standing there, in the middle of his dad’s living room, in his dad’s house, where his dad died. 

He still doesn’t cry. He should, maybe; that would be healthy. But he’s not sure that he can. He’s feeling—too much or too little, it’s hard to tell. He can still hear the gunshot, still hear the echo of it when he shot Victor in the chest. His ears ring with _I love you, son_ and Freddie’s _do the job!_ and—

He did. He did the job. He finished the job. He finished it and his dad is still dead and his best friend is still dead and. Fuck. Fuck, maybe he can cry after all. 

Maybe he can’t stop crying.

He sinks down to the floor, back against the couch, face pressed against his bent knees. He cries until his head aches but he doesn’t feel any better for it. He thinks he might feel worse, actually, and not just because the painkillers he took hours ago are wearing off. There’s no hollowness, no ice-cream-tub-scraped-empty kind of feeling he expects there to be. Wants there to be, even, because that would make sense, wouldn’t it? Let all the emotions spill out and then they’re gone. Done. Felt and finished with, time to move on.

He does move, slowly and painfully, shoulder one sharp pain among many, but he doesn’t move on. Still doesn’t know how. Forward, obviously, but the trail of destruction isn’t just behind him, it’s all around, every step likely to be hobbled by grief that springs up out of nowhere when he least expects it. Crying hasn’t solved any of that. All it has really done is make him feel dehydrated and a little bit sick.

He looks into the dark and the quiet all around him. He searches for something, anything, he doesn’t know what, and the thought that comes like sudden headlights on an empty highway is: _the only easy day was yesterday._ It’s a mantra he’s lived with for eleven years now, but for the first time he finds himself hoping its not true. It has to get easier, right? It has to.

Surely, it has to.

Steve hauls himself up. (Nobody else there to do it.) He kicks off his boots, doesn’t care where they land, then he stumbles upstairs. He lies down in his room, in the bed he hasn’t slept in since he was fifteen years old, and even though he’s so tired it hurts, he stares up at the ceiling and doesn’t sleep. 

**Author's Note:**

> Next time Steve will get hugs I promise.
> 
> Thanks for reading :) Kudos and comments are love ❤️ You can also find me on tumblr [here](https://renecdote.tumblr.com) if you'd like.


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